Limited use garments, such as disposable gowns and disposable diapers, have often employed refastenable adhesive tapes to secure the garment on the wearer. For example, with disposable diapers, adhesive tape tabs have been employed to secure the waistband portions of the garment about the waist of an infant.
It has been desirable to provide a refastenable tape tab system in which the tape tab can be peeled away and readhered several times to the tape attachment zone. Such operation, however, typically tears the outer layer of the garment. As a result, various techniques have been employed to reinforce selected landing zone regions against which the adhesive tape tab can be repeatedly adhered, removed and readhered.
Certain conventional techniques have employed a separate layer of polymer sheet material bonded to the outer cover sheet of a disposable diaper. For example, see U. K. patent application GB 2 129 689 A published May 23, 1984 with L. Widlund as inventor; European Patent Application EP 0 080 647 Al published June 8, 1983 with R. de Jonckheere, et al. as inventors; and U. K. patent application GB 2 135 568 A published Sept. 5, 1984 with J. Pasinato, et al. as inventors.
Other diaper structures have reinforced the backsheet material with a flexible structural material, such as scrim, to prevent stretching and rupture of the backsheet due to tension imparted by fastening tape tabs during diapering, wearing of the diaper and removal of the diaper from the infant. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 3,867,940 issued Feb. 25, 1975 to F. Mesek, et al.
Still other structures have employed a refastenable tape system in which the outer cover of a garment is reinforced with a pattern of adhesive. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,210,144 issued July 1, 1980 to H. Sarge III, et al. reinforces the backsheet by coating it with a material having a high tensile strength and a low elongation tensile force property relative to the backsheet material. U.S. Pat. No. 4,296,750 issued Oct. 27, 1981 to L. S. Woon, et al. reinforces the backsheet of a garment with a layer of hot melt adhesive to provide strengthened tape securement zones. The hot melt adhesive layer has a lower modulus of elasticity than the film and is applied in a heat softened condition.
Conventional refastenable tape systems, such as those described in the above documents, have not been completely satisfactory. Those systems which employ separate sheet layers of plastic film or scrim material bonded to the garment outer cover can require complicated and costly manufacturing equipment and processes. The systems which employ patterns of hot melt adhesive bonded to the garment outer cover have not been able to withstand the peel forces generated when a user rapidly peels the fastening tape from adhesive contact with the garment outer cover. The rapid peeling speed normally employed by an ordinary user generates large tensile stresses which can fracture the coating of reinforcement adhesive and tear the garment outer cover.